The Madras High Court has directed the Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB) to revalue the answer sheets of all candidates who wrote the examination for the post of Block Resource Teacher Educator (BRTE) in the State under the Sarva Siksha Abigyan Scheme for 2009-2010.
Disposing of a batch of writ petitions, Justice V. Ramasubramanian also gave the basis on which the revaluation should be done.
Answer sheets of those who took the subjects of chemistry, history, education and mathematics should be revalued by applying the correct key answers to eight questions mentioned in the order. After revaluation, the final list of candidates for participation in the next stage of selection process should be released within two weeks.
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A total of 1,32,987 candidates took the written examination on February 14 this year.
The examination was of the objective type in a single paper of three hours for 150 marks. Of this, 110 marks were for the subject chosen by the candidate, 30 marks for education and 10 marks for general knowledge.
The answer sheets were valued and a list of candidates was released on April 1. Some candidates, who were not successful, filed a batch of petitions seeking revaluation and furnishing of key answers.
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Review board
The TRB informed the court that since several representations had been received from candidates, a post-examination review board was constituted. After analysing the questions and key answers, the board concluded that there were no discrepancies in English, Botany and Zoology.
Initially, it found that though the questions in each subject were jumbled in four different chronological orders, the order in which the key answers were fed into the computer had not changed. The key answers for a few questions in Tamil, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, History and Geography were found incorrect.
A final verification board went into the matter and had all the answer scripts revalued.
A revised tentative provisional list of candidates, declared successful, was released in the website on May 18.
The prayer in most writ petitions was for a direction to the board to proceed further with the selection process, in pursuance of the first list and to ignore the second list. Some petitions sought a direction to the authorities to constitute an expert committee to examine the question papers, key answers and find out their correctness and, thereafter, revalue the answer sheets of all candidates.
Later, the TRB conceded the petitioners' claim with regard to a few questions to which the petitioners had taken exception.
Therefore, it had become clear that even the revised select list released on May 18 would not survive and the board would have to prepare a fresh list on the basis of the objections now conceded before the court.